[sethchan]

Originally Posted by jeremyc74

That really wasn't my intention, I just wanted to make it clear that I'm not someone just talking out of their ass. Those orange things you see are automated carts that move a dash assembly from station to station where the workers put various pieces on it. I wish I could take a better shot, but it might cause problems for me if the wrong person saw it.

A lot of the talk in the media right now about the Big 3's situation is a lot like the talk about the war, and all the armchair generals who think they know more than the officers on the ground (FYI, I was a Marine before I got this cushy engineering job, so I know what that's like as well). :smile:

a) The fact that you may have put in an appearance on an assembly line means zilch. And that's all that photo shows.

b) OTHER CAR COMPANIES FACE EVEN MORE POWERFUL UNIONS EVERY DAY AND ARE STILL EATING DETROIT'S LUNCH. You have failed to make a case that UAW workers are any less productive or any more intransigent than auto industry workers in other countries.

c) Instead of relevant data, like comparisons of hourly prodctivity rates, you have provided anecdotes. In statistics, the technical definition for anecdote is "talking out of your ass."

But thanks for playing.

[sethchan]

Originally Posted by MadMan77

Wow! Talk about being owned.

To Sethcan: I am in the Air Force and see what the happens when 20,000 civil servants and their union are part of large scale maintenance. This is pale in comparison to the UAW and what jeremyc74 experiences on the production line. I think you should step back and let the man in the trenches (jeremyc74) tell you how it really is.

Jeremy, like anyone else, has an agenda. Whatever his experience, there is no reason to credit him with godlike objectivity. Moreover, he, like most Americans, seems utterly blind to anything happening outside the borders of the U.S.

U.S. automakers are even failing to compete successfully against companies that have even more powerful unions (like IG Metall) and even higher labor costs. And have to ship those cars across oceans. You'll note that Jeremy does not supply any comparative hourly productivity rates, which would actually be relevant. Instead, he supplies sweeping generalizations based on nothing more than anecdote. It doesn't matter that the anecdote is observed first hand, if it is. It's still an anecdote. It's not data.

People are willing to pay a premium for cars that they want. The Big Three, however, build cars that people don't want. So management, and people like Jeremy, think that auto workers should give back a few more billion in benefits. At which point management, and possibly Jeremy, will all get big bonuses for cutting costs. This will allow the Big Three to continue to build badly designed, frumpy cars, while giving executives huge "performance" bonuses -- business as usual, in other words -- for a few more years before demanding that those "overpaid" UAW workers take more wage cuts.

Anyone who thinks that UAW workers' wages and work rules have much to do with the catastrophe facing the Big Three is not living in the real world.

[lambammm]

here it is plain and simple, the bail out is needed, but is going to be unsuccessful because management will be allowed to continue building cars that people don't want. in the near future american auto manufacturers will be asking for money again and we'll have to do it AGAIN to save our own asses. this is inevitable unless us auto decides to make drastic changes to their terrible "build-a-buncha-different-crappy-cars-on-the-same-platform" business model. it's clear what happened though, we enjoyed domination of the auto market until the 70s and continued to rest on our laurels and sit on our hands while the world caught up and then surpassed us. whoops, stupid americans.

[jeremyc74]

Originally Posted by sethchan

Jeremy, like anyone else, has an agenda. Whatever his experience, there is no reason to credit him with godlike objectivity. Moreover, he, like most Americans, seems utterly blind to anything happening outside the borders of the U.S.
.

You make some pretty wild assumptions. I've lived and worked in over a dozen countries, inluding Japan (two years there) China, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, UAE, and several island nations just south of the US, to name a few.

I work in international field service so I'm in factories all over the world, and I have a Swiss girlfriend to add a little more perspective.


My agenda is to make sure that information being tossed around about the Big 3's problems is accurate. What you said was not. You have yet to tell us what your experience with the auto industry is, but I'm assuming you know only what you see in the media, which means you know basically nothing about what is actually going on.

Originally Posted by sethchan

Anyone who thinks that UAW workers' wages and work rules have much to do with the catastrophe facing the Big Three is not living in the real world.

This is a prime example of how little you know.


The average UAW employee tops out about $3-4/hour higher than a comparable line worker in non-union plants. It's not an insignificant amount of money, but the actual wages aren't the main issue. The benefits are a big part of it though. The other companies manufacturing in the US aren't dealing with massive pension programs (that are now suffering becasue of the downturn in the market) for thousands of retirees.

The other major part of the problem with the Big 3 is that it takes them longer to build a car than their competitors. That is a direct reflection of limitations put in place by the UAW to increase or at least maintain their membership. The UAW fights automation tooth and nail, and then when a machine is put in place, the skilled trades people treat it like shit so the engineering staff doesn't want to go that route again. That's why I'm sitting in the plant I'm in right now.

Originally Posted by sethchan

a) The fact that you may have put in an appearance on an assembly line means zilch. And that's all that photo shows.

Ok, now you're basically calling me a liar, and that is a pretty good indicator of your general thought process (anyone who knows more about a situation than you do has to be lying about it...right?)

I'm an automation engineer that does field service and installation, and I spend every single day in a plant like the one I took that picture of. My company builds equipment for nearly every auto manufacturer in this country, and supports their international operations in many cases. Here are a couple more pictures that I just happened to have from another thread.


The large robot is testing keyless entry modules. The two smaller ones are building a part of a stability control system. Now if you'd like to continue the debate, try to do so on substance, not by attempting to discredit my position.

[jeremyc74]

Originally Posted by sethchan

a
c) Instead of relevant data, like comparisons of hourly prodctivity rates, you have provided anecdotes. In statistics, the technical definition for anecdote is "talking out of your ass."

But thanks for playing.

By the way...what information have YOU provided? :iono:

[MastaMind]

Originally Posted by ARES45

I don't know if they make that much but they definitely make more than the workers down here working for hyandai. The big three put themselves in this situation, they should have told them years ago when they wanted ridiculous amounts of wages/benefits that they will be building plants elswhere and if any of the union workers want their jobs at a competitive wage they can meet them elsewhere. Greed seems to have torn the countries economy apart, whether it is the automakers making less than competitive vehicles, the autoworkers wanting more pay than their job is worth, people wanting houses they can't afford, lenders lending money to people who couldn't pay it back, etc.

Yes, yes it has, unfortunately. So much so that people who didn't/don't foster a "more, more, more" mentality are now being affected.

[MadMan77]

Originally Posted by sethchan

Jeremy, like anyone else, has an agenda. Whatever his experience, there is no reason to credit him with godlike objectivity. Moreover, he, like most Americans, seems utterly blind to anything happening outside the borders of the U.S.

U.S. automakers are even failing to compete successfully against companies that have even more powerful unions (like IG Metall) and even higher labor costs. And have to ship those cars across oceans. You'll note that Jeremy does not supply any comparative hourly productivity rates, which would actually be relevant. Instead, he supplies sweeping generalizations based on nothing more than anecdote. It doesn't matter that the anecdote is observed first hand, if it is. It's still an anecdote. It's not data.

People are willing to pay a premium for cars that they want. The Big Three, however, build cars that people don't want. So management, and people like Jeremy, think that auto workers should give back a few more billion in benefits. At which point management, and possibly Jeremy, will all get big bonuses for cutting costs. This will allow the Big Three to continue to build badly designed, frumpy cars, while giving executives huge "performance" bonuses -- business as usual, in other words -- for a few more years before demanding that those "overpaid" UAW workers take more wage cuts.

Anyone who thinks that UAW workers' wages and work rules have much to do with the catastrophe facing the Big Three is not living in the real world.

I don't believe that I ever compared jeremyc74 to having any "godlike" objectivity. You are taking what it being said, staying in your corner and shaking your head in denial with your eyes closed and your ears plugged.

jeremyc74 is simply pointing out a fact that the majority of the UAW workers are corrupt because of their ability to put a stranglehold on the Big 3. If the UAW decides to stop working there is no other way to get the production lines going without risk of the UAW's lawyers pouncing on them and making matters worse. It is like being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

My experience in the matter is seeing what goes on with the local aircraft workers union. There was a guy dealing cocaine out of the rest room in a hanger on an US Air Force base. The local OSI (Office of Special Investigations) unit finally caught up with him, charged him and he was fired from civil service. He served his time in jail and came back demanding his job back and because of some loop-hole in the union mandate he had to be hired back on. So he not only was hired back, after dealing a controlled substance on a military installation, but he was promoted out of his area. The main idea behind this is that it is nearly impossible to fire the corrupt or lazy or whatever else you want to label people when they belong to a union.

[sethchan]

Originally Posted by jeremyc74

By the way...what information have YOU provided? :iono:

The burden of proof is on you. And I see that you slithered away to comparing UAW to non-union workers, which is dishonest. The big three, as I seem to have to keep pointing out over and over and over again, lose market share to very expensive, unionized workers in Japan and Europe, not just to non-union workers in Alabama.

IG Metall, you might have heard of it, is a lot more powerful that the UAW. My car was built in Leipzig. By highly paid union workers. WVs, built by highly paid union workers -- more highly paid than UAW workers, though it depends on the exchange rate.

I don't care how many pictures you show me of assembly lines. Do. Not. Care. Not relevant. You still have no way to win the argument that UAW workers are more expensive to employ than Japanese or German workers. Because they aren't. IG Metall workers are among the most coddled, highest-paid assembly line workers in the world. And yet German car companies have been doing much better than American car companies.

Somehow, for some reason, you think that the only relevant comparison is between UAW workers and non-union American workers. Well, automobiles are a global industry and the world is bigger than the U.S. One last time: THE BIG THREE ARE LOSING TO COMPANIES WITH HIGHLY UNIONIZED, HIGHLY PAID WORKERS, TOO. Not just to companies with non-union workforces. No number of anecdotes coming out of your ass are going to change that. Why is it so difficult for you to get that through your head?